


Pudding Brain

by sonictrowel



Series: Long Night in the Blue House [26]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Domestic, F/M, Gen, Mildly Fluffy, Plot, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-07
Updated: 2017-04-07
Packaged: 2018-10-16 01:55:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10561442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonictrowel/pseuds/sonictrowel
Summary: The thing about the Doctor was, he was actually quite clever, when he wasn't being a completely thick idiot.  So it was beginning to become very frustrating that he was making so little headway in his research now that Mils had gone.





	

**Author's Note:**

> yeah I know I'm out of control. I LOVE ALL OF YOU! thank you for your wonderful comments, you are the best readers a gal with too much time on her hands could ask for.

The thing about the Doctor was, he was actually quite clever, when he wasn't being a completely thick idiot.  So it was beginning to become very frustrating that he was making so little headway in his research now that Mils had gone.  He was working his way through his copy of her dissertation for about the fifth time, reading under the desk lamp in the study in the wee hours of morning while River was still asleep.  Mils chose the subject in order to find information that they would need, but whether now or in the future, she wouldn’t say.  Hell, maybe there was even something River would need to know in the Library.  He would have to ask her next time he saw her, though there was no guarantee she’d tell him.  But she must have the thing practically memorised after all the time they spent going over it.

There were more answers to be found in the nature of the stones, he was sure of it.  He read over the Hazandra’s history and the various miracles attributed to it again and again.  It had brought people back to life.  But those people still had bodies.  What about someone who was alive, but didn’t have a body?  That might be a bit trickier.  Stardust though they may all be, could the energy from a star alone physically recreate his River?

He felt sick when he thought about it too much.  His whole being ached to hurry back to bed and hold her, to remind himself she wasn’t gone, not yet.  To sleep and see her again in his dreams, alive and real and waiting.  But he had to solve this.  He had to make this work.  

He’d done something with the Hazandra in the future, when he borrowed it before sending it back to install in River’s screwdriver.  That last part, at least, made sense: draw the energy of the nearest star into the technology that had captured her consciousness.  When he sprinted across the Library, begging her to stay with him, the ghost of love and wishes would grant his wish.  With that burst of energy, the woman he loved would be saved, not merely a ghost.  

But what had he done with it in the future?  It had to be involved with solving the problem of getting her a physical body.  That was the main thing left, really— that and putting her into it.  But it couldn’t be just any old one.  Oh, much as he adored every single, solitary, infinitesimally tiny detail of her present body, he would love her just as fiercely no matter what she looked like.  He was a Time Lord; regeneration was nothing.  That was not in question.  Rather, the question was how to make sure she would come back in a body capable of regeneration.  

Because he would be damned if he’d bring her back just to watch her die again.  Once he had her back, he knew his first destination.  He might have caused a _bit_ of... havoc, last time he was there… he rubbed his forehead and cringed.  But Gallifrey still existed because of him.  Gallifrey _owed him._  And whether they liked it or not, he was going to collect.

But, he was getting ahead of himself.  One step at a time, one step at a time.  He took off Amy’s specs and held the earpiece pinched between his finger and thumb as he rubbed his eyes and groaned under his breath.

“Late night?” came Nardole’s voice from the doorway.

“Not so bad as that, just an early morning,” the Doctor said, sighing and resting his elbows on the desk.  “Why are you up?”

“Working odd hours, you know, and with it always being dark, I’m never quite sure when I’ll be up.”

“You know you don’t have to keep working at the restaurant,” the Doctor said, suddenly feeling very guilty for not asking what their reassembled lodger would actually like to be doing with his life.  “We don’t need much, with the TARDIS for a house, and River’s always actually paid attention to those sort of things so she’s got money, and I’ve… probably got some currency in some sofa cushions, somewhere...”

“I don't mind it, really.  Keeps me out of trouble,” Nardole replied.  

“You don’t mind living on this planet in the dark and cold with nothing much to do?”

“Oh, it’s alright,” he said.  “I haven’t got anywhere else to be, really.  And Dr. Song has always been kind to me, even when she didn’t want me to notice.”

The Doctor smiled in fond amusement.   _“...And_ I put your head back on,” he added when it seemed Nardole wasn’t going to.

“Erh, yes, and that.”

The Doctor flipped the binder containing Milly’s dissertation shut and stood from the desk.  “Tea?”

“Ooh, yes please,” said Nardole, following him into the kitchen.

___

The Doctor sat on a stool at the worktop, staring unseeingly into the empty space across from him.  It was in moments like this, when he poured one less cup and felt the profound disturbance in his newly-acquired life of routine, that he was suddenly, painfully struck with how much he missed Milly.  But it’s not as if he didn’t have lifetimes of experience with missing people, especially the one person he couldn’t bear to lose.  He guessed he had two of those, now.  Or would have.  

And that— that was the most terrifying thing about it.  He had an overwhelming pang of guilt, remembering Ashildr’s three children and her one spare Mire chip.  He couldn’t forget that it was a dangerous universe, especially for anyone who called the Doctor family.  He’d failed River spectacularly, so many, many times, from the moment he met her.  And the Ponds.  To have two now to protect from the dangers of being dear to him, with his abysmal track record...

“Alright, Doctor?” Nardole asked, snapping him out of his stupor.

“Mm?  Oh, yeah.  Just tired.”

“I thought you said you only slept ‘for funsies,’” said Nardole, with air quotations.

“Did I say that?” the Doctor mumbled under his breath.  He needed to stop bloody telling people things.  “Don’t be daft,” he went on with as much false bravado as he could muster, “everything needs sleep.  Else you’ll go mad and your mitochondria’ll get buggered and,” he waved his hand vaguely in the air, deflating quickly with the effort of explaining, “other stuff.”

“Well, you _do_ seem tired...”  

The Doctor could just about hear the man’s brain calculating whether or not he seemed mad as well.  It was a fair question, though he’d been up to no mad hijinx at all for quite a long time at this point.  He sighed and took a sip of his tea.

River appeared, yawning in the doorway, and the room positively lit up.  After spending the dark, quiet hours alone immersed in thoughts of her death, seeing her was a miracle.  Every time he saw her was a miracle.  Every day they had together.  He grinned at her and held out an arm, and she gave him a sleepy smile as she walked over.  He took her hand, pulling her arm around his shoulders and hitching her up sideways onto his lap.

“You got up early,” she said, kissing his cheek and taking the still-steaming teacup next to his.

The Doctor buried his face in her hair.  “Mm,” he mumbled, “I’m regretting that.”

“You too, Nardole?”

Nardole shrugged.  “Couldn’t get back to sleep, ma’am.  Now that we’re all up, I can do breakfast today.”

He was a good chap, Nardole.  The Doctor gave him a grateful nod and tightened his arms around River’s waist, sighing quietly and focussing on her comfortable weight in his lap, her curls tickling his cheek, her arm wrapped around his shoulders— still very much here and alive.  He had really managed to get himself into a mood this morning, but there was rarely a mood of his for which River didn’t possess the cure.

She noticed, of course.  While Nardole dug through the Samey cupboard and pulled out a bowl of bubbly crumpet batter, River turned to whisper in the Doctor’s ear.

“What’s wrong, sweetie?”

“Mm, just…” he sighed.  “Three teacups.”

She took his chin in her hand and turned his face to hers, giving him a sympathetic little smile and then a slow, soft kiss.

“I know,” she said under her breath.  They held each other in comfortable silence while Nardole heated the griddle.

“Might pop out to the garden after breakfast,” the Doctor said.  “I think this’ll be the last of the spinach, but I can put in some more root vegetables.”

“I’m just going to finish up the new chapter I’ve been working on.  We can go over it later if you want,” she said noncommittally, but with a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.  She took a sip of her tea.

The Doctor coughed.  It really was a good thing she didn’t start writing “romance” when Bow Tie was around.  Being with River had done wonders for quickly losing his inhibitions in that body, but he still might’ve dropped dead before he got more regenerations.

“Ah,” he said.  “Well, I suppose I could take a look.”

They did all of the editing in the bedroom now.  It just… saved time.

___

It was good to get his hands dirty, digging in the soil.  He had found River’s trowel in with the gardening tools and debated how much his pride was worth for about thirty seconds before grabbing it.  She probably wouldn’t come out, anyway, since she was writing.

His mind drifted back to this morning’s considerations.  What was it, in all the stories of the Hazandra, that would give him a clue?  He tried to draw connections to his own research in the texts that the TARDIS had slipped onto his shelf ahead of their proper time, back when he first realised River was talking to him from the Library.  The Old Girl did nothing without reason, even if he rarely understood it at the time.  There had to be a link.

He tried to let the thoughts move freely in his mind as he dug into the black earth, all the little pieces floating, waiting for two to drift into alignment and connect.  The elements that he knew, and the mysterious things in the periphery that just kept popping up.  River, Sandshoes, the Library, the screwdriver.  The Hazandra.  Him and Mils and Nardole.  River’s visit with Bow Tie at Trenzalore.  

He swallowed down the old pain and guilt that came with thinking of that moment.  Even though it had become a beacon of hope in his dreams, it was so much better seeing her on Calderon Beta.  Thinking of their honeymoon instead of what he had feared would be the true end of her.  She had to wait all this time so she could be there to save his friends, to speak his name, to give him the strength to keep going.  

And not only that.  Oh, not only that.  There was one piece he’d been trying to forget because it was so very hard to swallow.  He liked to think he was braver than that now, but he’d always been least honest with himself.  A cold chill went through him when he let the thought properly unfold in his mind.  She told him she’d been with him, in the confession dial.  All those billions of years.

There was a blank there, when he tried to remember.  The writing on the board and retreating footsteps.  Urging him to go on.  Telling him to win.  And then, an empty place where a face should be.  Clara.  He’d been so focussed on her loss, afraid to touch on any of the others in his mind when he was already living his nightmares, when it was already too much.  But it was only him.  Clara wasn’t there— not only was it impossible, she hadn’t even known about it.  It was only what his own mind was making him see.  

Or what someone was making him see.  Someone who did travel in visions and dreams, someone who did stay psychically connected beyond what should be possible— to him and Clara, both.  Perhaps a gift of the TARDIS.  Someone who knew him so well, she knew showing her own face would only make it harder for him to cope.

_“If she’s really dead, then how can I still be here?”_

_“Okay.  How?”_

_“Spoilers.”_

Oh, god, of course it had been her.  Out of everything he’d learned, that was the thing that squeezed his hearts so tight he couldn’t breathe.  How could he look at his beautiful, wonderful River and think that not only her death, but the same eternity of torture he’d barely endured still lay ahead of her?  It was a thought too horrific to bear.  It was too much for him to take from her.  It was too much.

He could have just given up, though, couldn’t he?  All they wanted was information about the Hybrid.  Was it worth that much, Ashildr’s life?  Out of all the lives he failed to save, was hers so much more important?  Why did River want to protect her so badly?

He froze.  Oh, no.  Oh, no no no no.  Stupid Doctor.  Stupid fucking pudding-brain idiot Doctor.  This is what he got for trying to push the unpleasant thought out of his mind.  He missed it.  The whole damn time, he missed it.  It was so fucking blatantly bloody obvious— he was breaking out in a cold sweat.  What the hell was he going to do about it now?

The Hybrid, appearing over and over in accounts of the Hazandra and future stories of the Doctor.  The one that something in his mind, and in River’s, had compelled him to spend four and a half billion years protecting.  That was the thing with being a Time Lord.  Sometimes you remembered in the wrong direction.  But he never realised until it was too fucking late.

Two warrior races— it could have been River.  Easily.  Standing in the ashes of Gallifrey?  Well, they were pompous gits, and River suffered no fools.  Maybe if they were responsible for his death, permanently, he could see her standing in the ruins of their institutions, the Matrix, all their seats of power.  But she’d never harm innocents if she could help it.  And anyway, they had access to the Matrix; they knew about River, they must.  Maybe they knew she was dead, and couldn’t see for certain that she would return (he refused to believe that the predictions confirmed she wouldn’t.)  They’d never made a move on her, when they had two hundred years of chances.

No.  It was Amelia.  Or— of course it wasn’t, she wasn’t going to destroy Gallifrey—  but they thought it was her.  They didn’t know about her yet, but in her time, she was on the run.  The High Council were after her.

“Fuck,” he said to his turnips.

 


End file.
